Your conversions may be overcounted
Fewer than 10% of transaction IDs matched between your sources over the past 2 days, so the same conversion may be counted more than once. Find the same lead in the website tag and in the offline or imported record. Make both carry one unique ID, make the form post that ID with the submission, and turn off any second source counting the same lead.
At a glance
- Where it shows
- The Diagnostics tab in the Google tag settings.
- What stops
- No ad stops. The conversion count and the value bidding uses are inflated while the duplicates stand.
- How serious
- A diagnostic, not a penalty. The cost is bidding and budget decisions made on a count that is too high.
What it means
A conversion that is recorded by the website tag and also imported from a CRM, a call system or an upload needs a shared key. The transaction ID is that key. When the IDs do not match across sources, Google cannot tell one conversion from two.
This is a matching problem, not a tag fault. The tag can fire on every submission and the message still appears, when the ID it sends differs from the ID the offline record carries.
What actually triggers it
A form that does not post the ID its tag sent
Not on Google's help page
In one real account, the website form did not post the transaction ID its tag had sent. The later record had nothing to match, so the conversion could not be tied back to the click or withdrawn.
An upload that writes its own ID
A CRM, call system or spreadsheet upload that creates a new order number for each lead, instead of storing the ID the website tag sent, can never match. Google asks for one unique ID per conversion that matches across the Google tag and the other source.
A transaction ID that is missing or invalid
The event sent no ID, or one that does not match the expected form. Google's separate message, Google tag is missing transaction ID, covers this case and applies only to conversions counted from more than one source.
Fix it in this order
- Pick one lead from your records that is counted in two places, and note the ID the website tag sent for it.
- Find the same lead in the imported or offline record, and check whether that record carries the same ID.
- If the form does not post the ID with the submission, add it, so the record carries the value the tag sent. Use a unique ID per conversion, not one that repeats across submissions.
- Decide which source counts each conversion. Turn off the second source for that action, so one lead is counted once.
- Check the match rate in Tag Diagnostics after 2 days. Recent conversions have to match before the message clears.
The status is measured over the last 2 days, so old duplicates do not clear the message on their own. Once new conversions match, the count settles over the following days.
Often confused with
Google tag is missing transaction ID
The event carried no ID, or an invalid one. That is a separate message, and it applies only to conversions counted from more than one source. This page covers IDs that exist but do not match.
Google tag has stopped sending data
The tag sends nothing, so the count is too low. This message is the opposite: the count is too high because the same conversion arrives twice.